When testing a semiconductor device, data, such as device configuration data or production test data, may be stored in the nonvolatile memory (NVM) device at various manufacturing or testing stages. Often the data that is stored requires fewer bits than an entire address unit of the NVM's array. However, error correction code (ECC) calculations must be based on an entire address unit. Therefore, to store the test data and use ECC calculations, an entire address unit is used, although some of the address unit is filled with default and meaningless data. Since the entire address unit does not contain meaningful data, all of the memory space is not fully utilized. To be able to store more test data in the NVM device, it is desirable to fully utilize all of the memory space. One solution for utilizing all of the memory space is to not use the ECC calculations. However, this prevents errors from being detected during future reads. Therefore, a need exists for a way to fully utilize the memory space of a NVM device while using ECC calculations.
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